Scientific evidence gives Ireland a strong hand to ensure aggressive but achievable climate change targets are set for Ireland. But any move towards a decarbonised future demands practical pathways that have people at their centre.

Speaking in Cork at the opening of the International Energy Workshop 2016, Minister Denis Naughten remarked that the themes chosen for the workshop – policies, pathways, and people – reflected his own concerns as "Ireland's first minister for climate action".

The Minister also observed that no matter how ambitious our goals, we cannot deliver on these "unless we can bring our people with us. This means that we must stop thinking about energy inputs and fuels and the supply side generally."

"We need to start with basic principles. What do people want? And how can we build the climate change agenda around these "wants"?

Only by bringing people with us – not just with the scientific evidence, not just with the policy, but with practical pathways that have people at its centre – can we move this agenda towards a decarbonised future."

As one of the leading conferences for the international energy modelling research community, the International Energy Workshop typically focuses on topics ranging from energy supply to innovative energy technologies to environmental and climate policy, as well as exploring the intersection between energy analysis, economics, and the natural sciences.

It is the Minister's hope that this interaction of varied disciplines "will provide us as policy makers with the novel pathways" needed to help us decarbonise our own economy, and ultimately the global economy by 2050.

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